How to Make Art

Introduction: How to Make Art

"...the state of affairs in the artistic world is always a relation between something like our experimentation of chaotic sensibility in general, and the distinction, which is a moving distinction, between form and inform, or something like that." - Alain Badiou, The Subject of Art

The implications of our contemporary era for form are dizzying. The development of new forms is infinite.

Step 2: Is Something Happening?

- I have plastic bottles, plastic containers, lots of plastic. They have been tossed into boxes by the refrigerator.
- This is not Art, I will remove them and put them outside. I put them on the deck, I arrange them consciously/unconsciously. I look at my arrangement/sculptural formation.
- Awesome, I created a novel form. I am so not satisfied. I find my butane pen torch. I put down my sturdy stained and un-stretched canvas. I begin experimenting with how different things melt. Fire makes making radically new forms a speedy process. I have melted plastic bottles, plastic containers, lots of plastic. I grab a tomato and try to melt a 32 oz. V8 juice bottle around it. I manage to contain the tomato reasonably well. Awesome. I melt some bottles together, apologizing to the ozone before
-Wow all this smoldering plastic left unscorched areas on my canvas like simple stencils!
Drawing with fire! awesome! I experiment with using the melted plastic as stencils for a bit before looking back at my resources for further inspiration.

Next)

Step 3: Art Begets Art

In Step 2 I played with fire. I had bottles and containers, then I had a sculpture. I had a sculpture, then I had a bunch of little noxious, smoldering sculptures. One became an ironic tomato enclosure which was torched to oblivion becoming a stencil. The canvas stayed a canvass but had its form and function nevertheless dramatically altered.

I went ahead and experimented with using gloss medium on my decent drawing of a fit male butt, and subsequently torching it as well. I liked my drawing as a traditional graphite and charcoal drawing, but appreciate the fearless pursuit more than the sketch.

That being said, be fearless in your pursuit of Art. Play with form and build up and up, even if you're burning something down. Thanks.